


Mammals

by NotYourHousekeeperDear



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5586835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotYourHousekeeperDear/pseuds/NotYourHousekeeperDear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock helps John and the baby settle through his expert knowledge of mammalian emotional regulation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mammals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sherwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherwings/gifts).



> This story is for Sherwings as part of the Secret Santa Exchange 20-15 on Sherlock Boardhost. I loved her prompt which was, “I would like to read Johnlock (of course :P ), post Series 3, Sherlock sings, John keeps a journal, overall primarily fluffy and humorous story, some angst is OK. Lots of love, which John confesses first.”

MAMMALS

The Journal of Baby Jasmine Watson  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Date: March 11 2014  
Age: 2 weeks, 3 days  
Vitals:  
Liquid In: 6 x 120 mL formula  
Liquid Out: 5 wet nappies, 3 poo nappies  
Weight: 10 pounds 3  
Sleep: 14hrs, 28 mins  
Mother: AWOL  
Other notes: Slight superficial bruising on left temple (see below). Cuddling father’s chest appears to settle 

Sherlock came round today. He brought Jasmine a magnifying glass, which she promptly smashed on her head and cried. Sherlock reassured me that it was break-resistant glass and that he had given Jasmine the glass in order to observe her reaction. Something to do with an investigation into a break and entry in the local nursery for Lestrade. He then informed me that she should have better control of her limbs by now. What an arse. 

At two weeks she doesn’t even know her hands are part of her little body (I checked web Doctor). Threw him out of course. 

Took a while to resettle Jasmine. Cuddled to chest for a long time before she went to sleep. Just popped her in the cot now. Messaged Sherlock to tell him about how Jasmine hasn’t even worked out that they are her hands yet. He’s coming over tomorrow to teach her deduction. Too tired to argue.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Date: March 12th 2014  
Age: 2 weeks, 4 days

Vitals:  
Liquid In: 5 x 120 mL + 2 x 45 mL formula  
Liquid Out: 4 wet nappies, 4.5? poo nappies  
Weight: 10 pounds 3  
Sleep: 12hrs, 2 mins  
Mother: AWOL  
Other notes: Not very impressed with deduction. Prefers Sherlock singing. I know. Amazing. See below

Jasmine screamed when she saw Sherlock today. I tried to explain how it is very possible she has experienced classical conditioning from the magnifying glass incident.  
“Don’t be ridiculous John, she may be limited but she is not Pavlov’s dog!”

Was too upset by him calling Jasmine limited to scoff at him for his ridiculous inability to apply any insights from any science that is not Chemistry into a real life situation. 

Sherlock then proceeded to show Jasmine some actual dead hands he had procured from Molly (God knows why that girl can’t say no to him) . The purpose of which was for her to deduce by elimination which one’s were her hands and which were the dead ones, using a process of elimination. 

I was going to kick him out again, but found Jasmine doing a pretty good job of letting her feelings known herself, with her cries getting more intense and indignant by the second. Most likely a fluke, but she was flapping about so much she even punched him in the eye with one of the dead hands. 

And then of course, he did something incredible. He picked her up gently (using his own hands of course), held her to his chest and started singing “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. His voice was low and beautiful and Jasmine gurgled and sighed before falling into a deep sleep.

“You know, I could find her, if you want me too”, he says watching Jasmine’s little chest rise and fall.

I freeze and stare at him. 

“I mean John, of course you are doing fine, it’s just..”

I stop him. “ It’s fine, Sherlock, really. I mean, Mary’s no mother. She never was right? I mean… and you’ll lend me a hand if I need, right?”

“Of course, Molly will just have to find a way to account for them. She is a clever girl, she’ll think of something”

“What are you talking about, Sherlock?”

“The hands, John. Honestly, I don’t know who is more limited, you or that baby. You can have a hand whenever you need of course. As long as it takes for her to learn deduction”

He smiled at me, put on his coat, and swooshed out the flat.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: March 21st 2014  
Age: 4 weeks, 0 days

Vitals:  
Liquid In: 8 x 120 mL (but maybe 145 mL consumed?) + 10 x 45 mL formula (God knows how much consumed? Nothing? Everything?)

Liquid Out: 3 wet nappies, 2 poos, 1 on Dad, 1 on mat  
Weight: 10 pounds 8?  
Sleep: 2 mins maybe?  
Mother: AWOL

We didn’t sleep last night. You can see from the log, obviously, that she was a darn unhappy little baby. The maternal health nurse is concerned about her weight increases slowing down. She talked to me about getting Jasmine into a “Eat, Play, Sleep” routine. My child should be good at routines. I mean she is the daughter of an army doctor and a trained assassin for-god’-sake, surely she has inherited some sort of gene for discipline?

Well, turns out all she has bloody inherited is a little psychopath gene (another thing to thank her mother for). Psychopaths follow their own rules right? Jasmine totally didn’t get into this eat, play, sleep rule. More I kept trying to feed and change her, more annoyed she got. She is darn lucky I have a thing for little psychopaths or I might have bloody killed her. 

Thankfully, the other psychopath in my life showed up this afternoon. He took one look at me and my screaming little girl and said, 

“John! Cortisol! Reptile brain, John!”

“What?” I replied. I was so tired and confused I almost dropped poor little screaming baby Jasmine onto the counter.

“Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of doctor?” Sherlock smirked. 

He’d obviously deduced I was too knackered to punch him today. Took all my effort to give him a death glare.

“Well, it’s all this… routine…” Sherlock, spat out the word “routine” as if he was sucking a sour lemon warhead. “Routine and baby logs and measuring bottles and nappies…”

“Says the man who got me drunk out of a measuring cylinder on my buck’s night,” I replied dryly. “And you even had this measuring type of app and asked me how much urine I discharged”

“No but that was different. Alcohol is a perfect antidote for all that cortisol and ... Hmm, maybe?”

I lost it then. 

“You are not experimenting on my little baby with alcohol! You might not think I am a good doctor, or a good father, but I’m not soaking her little brain in alcohol because you think it may calm down her stress hormones. Ok!”

“What?” Sherlock looked stunned. “You are a great doctor and father, John. You are just forgetting that you haven’t got a little lizard, you have a little baby! She is a mammal!”

I sat down, defeated. Jasmine was still screaming in my ear. Sherlock continued.

“When we are stressed, that is our reptile brain, right? Flight, fright or freeze- remember? It’s all that stress hormone stuff, cortisol and adrenalin? But us mammals, have a way to calm it all down with some lovely oxytocin and endorphins. Just have to do three little things.” Sherlock smiled.

“Fine,” I grumbled, “Do your three mammalian little things”. I handed him screaming psycho-Jasmine.

“Well, first is warmth,” said Sherlock, wrapping her in a pink blanket that was on the side of the couch. 

“And, the second is you speak in a soft, soothing voice.”

Indeed, his voice, had become soft and low and Jasmine’s cries softer and less intent.

“Finally,” smiled Sherlock at Jasmine, “Is soothing touch,”

Gently, he stroked a finger on the side of her soft cheek. Unbelievably she sighed, and breathed slowly. A few strokes later, her eyelids shut for the first time in 24 hours as her head lay heavy, asleep on Sherlock’s chest.

“I’ll go put her in the cot,” he said in his low, calm voice.

I remained sitting on the couch, flabbergasted.

“That was,” I said as he re-entered the room, “Amazing.”

“Just a bit of science, John” Sherlock replied smugly, sitting next to me on the couch. I could tell he was rather chuffed with himself.

I smiled back at him, rested my head on his shoulders and shut my eyes. 

I’m sure I felt a soft stroke on my cheek as I fell into the best sleep I had had for days. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Date: March 30th 2014  
Age: 4 weeks, 9 days  
Weight: Not heavy enough

Oh God, I can’t even bring myself to write her weigh in number. Sherlock’s warmth, voice and touch trick is working a treat. She is sleeping beautifully (almost through the night last night!) and is generally a much happier baby girl. I was so excited to show off to the maternal health nurse about the mammalian 3 part trick. But all she would say to me was, “She really should be heavier by now”.

So I’ve been trying to load her up with bottles but she keeps falling straight asleep. It was during one of these frustrating feeding/sleeping sessions, that I found myself longing for Sherlock to walk in and tell me what to do. Which of course he did. Since Mary went AWOL he has been coming over pretty much every day. I’ve tried to talk to him about that, I mean it wasn’t like he ever signed up to be a consulting parent, but whenever I try suggest he doesn’t need to be there, he totally ignores me and focuses on talking to Jasmine in that low, hypnotic voice of his. 

Today he greeted me with, “You need to stop feeding her to sleep,”

“I am not feeding her to sleep! I’m feeding her to fatten her up!” I retorted.

“You know, kangaroos are mammals too,” he replied mysteriously.

“What?” I replied, stunned, “And no they are not Sherlock!”

“I keep talking to you about the mammals and you keep ignoring me,” He replied haughtily.

“I do not!” I shouted. God I wanted to punch that smug face. “And kangaroos are marsupials”

“Exactly as I said,” he replies, his voice low again, looking at the peacefully sleeping baby Jasmine. “John, let me hold her, you need to strip”

“What?!?” 

“Fine, then! I’ll do it,” Sherlock grins and takes off his finely pressed white shirt. Underneath, he is all sculpted ivory torso. Honestly that man’s body would make a Greek God do a double check.

“Now pass me the baby, and the bottle” he says with calm confidence.

Stunned, I pass over Jasmine and the bottle. He cuddles her to his naked chest, and she rouses and starts rooting for a feed. What a little so and so. I’d been trying to feed her for the last hour and all I had got was snores. 

I watch them, and Jasmine is sucking up that bottle like she hasn’t seen milk for days. Sherlock looks amazing, half naked holding the baby. I feel my mouth drop to the floor.

“Now, John,“ his voice low and damn it, seductive. “You try,”

In a daze, I find myself unbuttoning my shirt. He comes over to me with Jas and the bottle, nuzzling Jasmine and the bottle to my chest. She keeps drinking enthusiastically.

“Kangaroo care, John,” Sherlock smiles, “They use it in hospitals you know. Babies feed more against naked skin. The name comes from how mother kangaroos feed their joeys in their pouches. Yet another helpful fact about mammals”

He lays a warm hand on my shoulder, and I feel it burn through my body.

I look up from little Jasmine, he is still standing an arms distance away from me and I find myself gaping in admiration of his chest. Something is stirring inside of me, and as much as I adore the baby in my arms, the direct of that stir I have to say is not to her but to the handsome, exasperating man in front of me.

“Marsupials.” I manage to whisper. 

Oh my God. I want this man.

“Um, Sherlock,” I murmur, “I think you’d better go”

He looks me up and down quizzically, and then nods as if he has figured it all out. 

“See you, John” he smiles enigmatically, god dammit, slips back into his shirt with ease and swishes out the flat, leaving Jasmine to guzzle her bottle whilst I question the very essence of my being. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Date: 21 July 2014  
Age: 5 months old 

Jasmine is even more gorgeous now. She plump and giggly and delightful and as I push her up Baker St she gurgles and smiles at the grumpy Londoners elbowing past her stroller. It has taken me a while to walk up to 221B of course. As much as I’d like to say, modern man that I am, that I sorted through my feelings quickly and maturely, I was a total mess of course.

The day after the kangaroo care session, I took Jasmine up in a train to Edinburgh. I told myself it was to look for Mary, as I know she has some friends over there, but it wasn’t of course. It was just a running away of sorts. Anyway, Jas and I did the ‘mammalian’ thing over there in Scotland, and while she thrived with cuddles, warmth, soothing and naked skin, I knew she missed him too.

Eventually, when we couldn’t bare another deep fried Mars bar (Ok that was me, Jasmine is still on the milk, although she did try some oat porridge the other day to the delight of Sheena, the Scottish lady at our hotel), we took that train down back to London, and then to Baker St, where I knew we belonged.

He answered the knocker of course. 

“John” he smiled

“Sherlock…” I began. “There is something else about mammals…”

“Yes, I know,” he said smugly. “Took you long enough to figure out”. 

Jasmine giggled as he drew us both in his arms, the embrace I have been longing for since I met him. We were finally home. 

THE END


End file.
